I put this on the Subscriber board, but it's the type of thing I know would draw good discussion here, so I'm posting it here, as well.

Read this email. Pay particular attention to the comments about scheduling, and then click the link I provided below, which shows you Alabama's schedules and results.

Note that Alabama only plays on Saturdays, and generally gets a favorable open date (more towards the middle of the season).

And remember that Clemson's only loss this year was on a Friday night, on the road, after they had played the previous Saturday.

It makes you think about what television does to some conferences, while a team like Alabama gets a favorable, old-school Saturday schedule.
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Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Chantel Jennings writes:

Even though there’s a chance that there will be multiple Power 5 conference champions that have at least two losses on the season, it’s still the Pac-12 that’s the farthest out of the Playoff race.

As The Mercury News’ Jon Wilner wrote earlier this week, the Pac-12 isn’t exactly an innocent bystander in that.

“Add it all up,” he wrote. “The brutal schedule demands and the poor playoff position and the complaints (from coaches) about the application of targeting and the night game complaints and the PR hits … again: no other Power Five has these issues … and it’s clear the Pac-12 football product needs help.”

Most notably in Wilner’s reporting was this staggering fact: The four Pac-12 teams that went on the road on a Friday after a Saturday conference game the previous week went 0-4 in those games. Three of those teams — USC, Washington and Wazzu — could have been Playoff contenders without those losses.

Also, add to that the fact that the Trojans still haven’t had an idle week. They get UCLA this weekend and then have a chance to rest up during the final weekend of the regular season. How quaint, right?

USC coach Clay Helton was the best version of a coach’s coach when asked about this on the Pac-12 media conference call on Tuesday. He said: “We’re in a television-driven world and a television-driven market. I think that’s the approach of our league. Part of college football is playing on Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights. You make the most of those opportunities because whether you’re on FOX or ESPN, you’re going to play one of those games. Whenever they tell us to put the ball down, we’ll do our best job.”

He’s not wrong. That’s a part of it. And an important part that helps fund plenty of aspects of Pac-12 football.

But it also seems as though there should be a way to give the Trojans an idle week before the last possible week … and to make sure that Washington State doesn’t have to travel to Cal on a short week after having traveled to Eugene the weekend before … and to find a way so that the Huskies don’t have to travel to Stanford on a short week after facing Oregon at home in a night game … and that Stanford isn’t playing on a Thursday night on the road after an 8 p.m. PT kickoff the Saturday before.

None of the scheduling quirks are conducive to having teams go 12-1 or 13-0 in a season. If any of the Pac-12 teams had been able to accomplish that this season, there’s a good chance the narrative would be very different for the Pac-12 Conference. But it’s not, and part of that is a self-inflicted wound.

(Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports)
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